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Paterson

Liff30 opened this year with Paterson, a gentle, understated drama from Jim Jarmusch. I’ve not always had great success with the film festival openers before. They often score some pretty big names – they’ve shown Argo and Gravity in recent years – but they tend not to really be my sort of thing. Jim Jarmusch is right up my street though. Dead Man was my favourite film for a good while and he’s done a couple of others I’ve enjoyed.

Paterson follows Kylo Ren Adam Driver, a bus-driver living in a town he was both born in and named after in New Jersey. We follow his relationship with his eccentric (irritating?), cupcake-baking girlfriend, his time on the bus, his evenings in the bar over the course of a week, all loosely bound together by the poems he writes in snatches of spare time. It’s tender and quiet – almost (but not quite) to the point of being boring. It’s by no means a film that’ll change your life but it is a beautiful little hymn to the importance of personal creativity and finding beauty in small joys. Paterson’s poem on his “current favourite” brand of matches (Ohio Blues, since you ask) is indicative of the kind the tone of the piece.

I’m sure there’s loads that I’ve missed in this. I get the feeling that with more deliberation, deeper knowledge of American poetry and culture and maybe a re-watch there’s a lot more to get out of this film. William Carlos Williams (of whom I know little more than a single poem) looms over the film and I think I’m going to have to have a look at his Paterson, an epic poem over several books.

Beer choice
Not a whole lot of choice today. The Film Festival bar was off limits to all but guests so we had to make do with the normal town-hall bar, which is mostly Worthington smooth-flow and fizzy beer. Settled for the only respectable beer on offer, a bottle of Black Sheep. Tasty, if not exciting.